Mengquan

Mengquan

Mengquan is a cultural relic protection unit of Hunan Province.

Mengquan is located at the foot of Furong Peak in the southwest of the county town. The spring water is sweet and cool, making tea without residue and brewing wine with a rich aroma, comparable to Changsha’s Baisha Well. Beside the well stands a stone stele inscribed with the characters “Mengquan,” carved by Zhang Gai from Poyang in the renzi year (1192) of the Shaoshu era of the Song Dynasty. The stele is 2.3 meters high and 1.02 meters wide. In the thirteenth year of the Guangxu reign (1887) during the Qing Dynasty, Prefect Chen Guozhong hired stonemasons to build the Mengquan into an octagonal well using strip stones, and constructed a stone pavilion beside it.

In the eighteenth year of the Guangxu reign, Imperial Examination Supervisor Zhang Yu inscribed a couplet on the pavilion pillars: “Here I stand, leaning on my official tablet, admiring the mountain—failing my whole life’s potential to hike; As a guest, I dispatch a token to divert the spring water—stealing a moment in the examination courtyard to brew tea.” Next to the couplet, he added an inscription: “Guilin has many fine mountains, but the emissary could not tour them. Beneath the Temple of Lord Zhao at Furong Peak west of the city lies a spring of exceptional clarity. When tea is needed at the examination courtyard, water is drawn from here. The temple had long been abandoned, but now Prefect Chen Guozhong of Yidu has restored it, inviting Monk Changfu from Zhejiang to tend to its incense offerings. Mister Mao from Dantu once visited the Temple of Lord Zhao, and the monk introduced him to me to request an inscription. As the monk was from my hometown, I composed these twenty-six characters for him. On the sixteenth day of the fifth month in the year of Renchen, Guangxu reign, Zhang Yu of Qiantang wrote and inscribed this.”

Mengquan, anciently known as Wanjun Spring and commonly called Bajiao Well. Legend has it that in the thirteenth year of the Jian’an era of the Eastern Han Dynasty (208 AD), Zhao Zilong (Zhao Yun) was ordered to take Guilin. Before departing, Zhuge Liang gave Zhao Zilong a clever strategy in a brocade pouch, instructing him to open it only in times of crisis. When Zhao Zilong’s troops reached Guilin, they set up camp at the foot of Furong Mountain. It was winter, the weather was dry, the camp was short of water, and morale was low. To resolve the urgent problem, the brocade pouch was put to use. But when opened, it revealed only a diagram of the Eight Trigrams, with no method for finding water.